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MEMBER DIARY

The Extra-Legal Astoundingly Arrogant President

Barack Obama’s social and political views are clearly outside the mainstream of American thought but that’s his privilege in the US. He was elected. He has the right to his own opinion about issues, like everyone else. What he doesn’t have the right to do is to be above the law.

This administration decided unilaterally to not enforce the Defense of Marriage Act. Think about this in the big picture… this is a federal law enacted by Congress and signed by the President of the United States. It was completed in exactly the method by which the US Constitution states the process is supposed to work. The Constitution also provides a method to change or repeal laws. That is not good enough for Barack Obama. The chief law enforcement officer for the nation has decided that he can pick and choose which laws he wants to enforce. Imagine the howls from the media if President Bush had unilaterally chosen not to enforce the laws regarding securities fraud, environmental policy or oil trading just because he didn’t like them. The arrogance is stunning.

Because of President Obama, Senator Harry Reid never worries about passing liberal programs anymore. That is why the Senate never takes up any business. If the President can’t get a law passed, he directs an executive branch agency to put regulations in place to have the law virtually in effect. In fact, by having “Czars” in place, there isn’t even any vetting of people who have more influence than cabinet secretaries. The administration is attempting to put in place cap and trade legislation and card-check union legislation by executive regulation and avoid the legislative process. The President has said in different words on a number of occasions that he will do things on his own because he “can’t wait for Congress to act”. Remember that this is a Congress in which he controlled the House of Representatives and had a 60 vote super-majority for two years (as an aside, the only reason the 60 vote majority was there was because of prosecutorial misconduct by the Department of Justice with Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska).

The President has decided that the first amendment to the Constitution is not a priority if it keeps him from putting his social policies in place. He can override Freedom of Religion when it suits him. He is also attempting to use the Federal Communications Commission to control talk radio.

The President believes that the commerce clause of the Constitution allows him to tell mothers what to put in home-made school lunches, allows him to tell people what kind of car to drive, and allows him to unilaterally take a large portion of the General Motors Corporation and give it to the United Auto Workers.

The President and congressional Democrats passed the Affordable Healthcare Act by breaking the rules of the Senate to pass the bill with a reconciliation vote.

Testimony in Congress revealed that the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice did not pursue cases if the victim of the discrimination was Caucasian.

The Democrats in the Senate have not passed a budget in almost three years. They don’t want a budget. As long as there is no budget, the spending increases about 7% a year and the President decides where the money goes. The Republicans in Congress have no say in spending. That is perfect for an authoritarian regime.

The list goes on.

About 236 years ago, the founders of this country fought a desperate (many thought to be futile) war to crawl out from under the tyranny and whim of a capricious king. They instituted a form of government where things were hard to do, on purpose. In that way, only things that were important enough to take the time for the government to consider were acted upon. It also required broad consensus to get anything done. Laws are supposed to be hard to pass or change or repeal. That way, the law doesn’t constantly change with the prevailing political breeze of the day. Most importantly, the government was supposed to be less onerous than the King’s and stay out of people’s lives except for the things that the people had ceded to the government. Those were things the government had to do because there was no other way. The US government is becoming more onerous all the time and President Obama seems to believe that is the third King in the House of Hanover reincarnated. He compares himself to FDR, JFK, Nelson Mandela, etc. The arrogance is astounding. It is only a matter of time before the people say enough of this. Many already do. I hope the time that the majority come around is in November of 2012.